Visioning With Sound

Today I was inspired to create a workshop to usher in the new year- Sacred Sound & Visions for New Year. It is completely last minute. Today is Tuesday. The workshop is Saturday. The 11th hour, as they say... but it was one of those ideas that grabbed hold of me and wouldn't let me go. In my experience those are the ones that generally manifest the most magnificently! (You will find a description of the workshop and the link to sign up if you click here.)

The vision that came to me around the workshop is to begin by offering a healing sound meditation- a circle of sacred sound if you will. That will be the vehicle for people to journey and see what arises in their consciousness- a vision quest of sorts. Sound is the carrier wave for intention. That is why it has been used in healing ceremonies and rituals for so many thousands of years.

Once the intentions have been set the participants will create vision boards to affirm and reinforce their intentions, putting into concrete form images that represent, ultimately, not just what they want or where they would like to travel or the new car of their dreams, but how they want to feel.

One of my favorite passages in A Course in Miracles comes under the heading "Setting the Goal" in Chapter 17. One of the things I love most about it is the point that in all things the ultimate goal should be truth.

"The value of deciding in advance what you want to happen is simply that you will perceive the situation as a means to make it happen. You will therefore make every effort to overlook what interferes with the accomplishment of your objective, and concentrate on everything that helps you meet it. It is quite noticeable that this approach has brought you closer to the Holy Spirit's sorting out of truth and falsity. The true becomes what can be used to meet the goal. The false becomes the useless from this point of view. The situation now has meaning, but only because the goal has made it meaningful.

⁵ "The goal of truth has further practical advantages. If the situation is used for truth and sanity, its outcome must be peace. And this is quite apart from what the outcome is. If peace is the condition of truth and sanity, and cannot be without them, where peace is they must be. Truth comes of itself. If you experience peace, it is because the truth has come to you and you will see the outcome truly, for deception cannot prevail against you. You will recognize the outcome because you are at peace. Here again you see the opposite of the ego's way of looking, for the ego believes the situation brings the experience. The Holy Spirit knows that the situation is as the goal determines it, and is experienced according to the goal."

Beyond the Solstice

How the time flies! Great sound healing event at Women & Infants Hospital last Monday on the heels of a Solstice Celebration in Cumberland at the Bija Institute. Beautiful space, good turnout, great people. The acoustics were amazing in the very center of the yurt!

The Sound Journey at Women & Infants was photographed and filmed by the Providence Journal as part of a piece they are doing on Sound Therapy at Women & Infants Hospital. We expect it to be in the paper and on their website on January 17. Very exciting!

Meanwhile Christmas has come and gone, a new year is upon us and the days are growing longer... Blessed be.

Sacred space awaiting...

Erica Nunnally leading a yoga flow in the yurt

Tuesday Afternoon (On Saturday Night)

Today, as I was standing on a chair attempting to reach the top of my Christmas tree to clip the very top few inches, a memory came to me of sitting atop the crow's nest on my father's boat, the Black Pearl, when I was 12 or 13 with my two older sisters, Miranda and Minnie, three and five years older than me respectively. The Moody Blues album "Days of Future Passed" had recently been released and we listened to it nonstop. When we were on the boat we would sit up there (yes, the very one in this photograph) and sing "Tuesday Afternoon" at the top of our lungs- until inevitably, Dad, who would be at the helm channeling Captain Bly, would shout at the top of his lungs, "Goddammit, pipe down up there!"

Enjoy. 

Grabbing The Muse By the Balls

I just read this statement by Seth Godin.

SUSDAT

Abbey Ryan has painted a new painting every day for 8 years.
Isaac Asimov published 400 books, by typing every day.
This is post #6000 on this blog.
Writer's block is a myth, a recent invention, a cultural malady.
More important than the output, though, is the act itself. The act of doing it every day. When you commit to a practice, you will certainly have days when you don't feel like it, when you believe it's not your best work, when the muse deserts you. But, when you keep your commitment, the muse returns. When you keep your commitment, the work happens.
It doesn't matter if anyone reads it, buys it, sponsors it or shares it. It matters that you show up.
Show up, sit down and type. (Or paint). 

I loved it when I did Your Turn Challenge and was blogging every day. The muse hasn't left but it certainly feels like time has been slipping away. So I am grabbing it back in this moment.

I have in fact updated my website in the last few days which you can see if you go to the Upcoming Events and Workshops. Also the "Sound Therapy Program" at Women & Infants Hospital (which, quite simply, is me) is going to be featured next week in the Providence Journal. They are coming to the hospital on Monday to take pictures of me doing a Healing Sound Journey and interview me and one or two of the patients. I am quite excited about this!

I'm also going to be doing a wonderful solstice event on Monday evening with a pretty amazing woman I met recently- Erica Nunnally. I am really looking forward to it. I loved her relaxed groundedness and openness when I met her- someone who seems to be very comfortable in her own skin as well as being a person with intention, integrity and focus- a great combination!
Check it out here: Lumina: A Celebration of Winter Solstice

I have been staying up too late every night for the past few weeks but somehow not getting done many of the things I would like. In this moment I am taking the time to show up and do something that is important to me- getting back on top of my blog.

My mother at her writing desk, probably in the early fifties. I wonder what she was writing.

Pearls Before Swine

One of my earliest introductions to wholistic sound, sound that has the power to heal the body-mind-spirit was Tom Rapp's album "One Nation Underground". The band was Pearls Before Swine. I was no older than 13. The album came out in 1967. It was an album and a group that opened up my mind and my emotions, unlike anything I had heard up to that point. When I heard them I couldn't get enough- I listened to their albums over and over.

Tonight I am revisiting that album- I wanted to hear the song "Snow Queen" which is from a different album, "Beautiful Lies You Could Live In" (1971), an album I listened to over and over as a teenager. When I went to YouTube, however, the first thing that came up was "One Nation Underground". I heard the first note and was hooked. Interesting to look back at a time in my life that was so charged, so full of idealism and angst, right in line with the times. As I listen to them now I hear music that shaped my mind and my consciousness and is a piece of who I am today.

When I was 17 I was suspended from boarding school for going out and listening to Pearls Before Swine when they were playing at The Salt Tavern in Newport, RI. It was well worth it! I was the instigator on that outing- no one else knew who they were. I wrangled three of my friends, one of whom was 18 and could order beer, to go with me. As it turned out, our waitress had gone to the same school we were all attending and she called the headmaster after bringing us a pitcher of beer! At some point I got up to use the restroom and when I came back he was sitting at our table with the rest of my friends. He smiled, said hello to me and let us listen to the rest of the set before he made us all leave. I think he actually let us finish our beer!

I loved all of their albums- each one became my favorite, one after another. They were like revelations to me, touching places inside of me that I didn't know existed and allow me to open to my self.

Tom Rapp was the creative force behind Pearls Before Swine. I found this fascinating article about him online. He is a lawyer now. http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-srv/style/features/rapp.htm

No Two Alike

Kicking ass on my computer today! Working on creating a flyer and links to February workshops in Florida, thinking creatively and expansively... And trying not to be just the littlest bit nervous about hitting the road so soon again and wondering what I am going to do for a vehicle. Not so sure, after the last thrilling trip I took to FL in my Subaru, that I want a repeat performance. I have put so much money into my car in the last year that I would love to think that it is now like new, but I am not so sure about that theory.

Just listed two courses on CEBroker- Sound Healing for Massage Therapists and Intro to Healing with Toning, Tuning Forks, and Tibetan Bowls. One is a 12-hour class the weekend of Feb. 20-21 at Abundance Wellness Center in Tallahassee. The other is a six-hour class in Seminole at Yoga4All on February 26. Still have more to do but I feel like this is a good start.

No two bowl layouts are alike... I could say more about this... Or you could just come to one of the workshops! Just click on Upcoming Events and Workshops on the top menu...